One of my favorite theologians/philosophers is Blaise Pascal. He’s who I had in mind when I titled the blog, "Pensees of a Pastor". He was a French scientist who lived in the 1600’s and believe it or not he invented some things that we even use today like the syringe, the hydraulic press and the adding machine (ok, that’s so old school!).
There was a time when Pascal was religious, at least on the exterior. Then something happened. He had a Holy Ghost moment, a spiritual “aha”, that he speaks of as his point of conversion. He ended up writing "pensees", which is French for “thoughts.” So really his book is a collection of his thoughts with no particular order to it. Recently, there has been a renewed interest in Pascal – Thomas Morris, James Houston, and Peter Kreeft – to name a few who have tried to organize his thoughts to give it some order. What I love about this is that it gives some context to Pascal's famous "Wager". It really takes an understanding of what leads up to the Wager to truly understand it for what it is.
Pascal is considered by some to be the precursor to Christian existentialists. He wasn’t opposed to the rational proofs for God. He just thought it was more helpful to start with what you and I experience in life – what we feel, what we sense as intuitions. I’ve always thought that was extremely helpful in getting people who are not Christian to think about God because the very thing you can’t ignore is what you sense daily about you and about life.
One thing that interested me was did you know that the quote we attribute to Pascal, he never said? The quote is something like, “There is a God-shaped vacuum inside each person that can only be filled with God.” I’ve read his writings and that's not exactly what he wrote. My best guess is it was summarized from this Pensees… “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.” [Pascal, Pensees #425].
So he said something close to it at least. Let me explain what Pascal is saying in this Pensees: Have you ever sensed that your needs are unending? You know how it goes… You buy an ipod and then a newer model with more gigabytes or wi-fi comes out. All of a sudden your ipod is so “ancient” Ugggh. I was happy once I bought it but now I really want the newer model! I have to be honest with you when I say that I’m never satisfied with what I have. It seems like my needs are unending, insatiable, like I’m on a path to consume more and more.
Here’s something to think about. What if that internal abyss you sense inside is not something that can be filled with anything temporal? What if the “hole” inside that you try to fill to get rid of the feeling is actually endless? That “hole” can only be filled with an endless person. Your deepest longings cannot be met by any “thing” or finite person, but by someone who by His nature is endless or eternal. What Pascal is pointing to is the "faint remembering" that we were once filled to the brim with someone infinite and immutable (unchanging) but this was radically changed at the Fall. This is simply one way in existence that we "sense" eternity. More on Pascal next week...
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